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Historical person

Richard II

1367–c. 1400

Richard II became king of England in 1377 at the age of ten and faced the Peasants’ Revolt four years later. His reign developed a highly ceremonial court and an increasingly personal style of kingship, while conflict with leading nobles culminated in the Merciless Parliament.

Richard later took revenge, exiled Henry Bolingbroke and seized the Lancastrian inheritance. Bolingbroke returned in 1399, deposed him and became Henry IV. Richard died in captivity. Richard II was born in Bordeaux, Duchy of Aquitaine and died in Pontefract Castle, Kingdom of England.

Juliet Barker’s England, Arise places the fourteen-year-old Richard II face to face with the rebels of 1381, making his handling of Wat Tyler and the London crisis a central test of an adolescent monarchy. Shakespeare’s Richard II dramatises the later collapse of his kingship, from conflict with the nobility to Bolingbroke’s return and deposition of the king. A. W. Boardman’s Hotspur follows the Percy family through the political consequences of Richard’s fall and Henry IV’s seizure of power. Dan Jones’s Henry V shows how the deposition shaped the childhood and legitimacy problems inherited by the next Lancastrian generation. Laura Ashe’s Richard II (Penguin Monarchs) reassesses Richard’s personality, political ideas and failures without reducing his reign to the inevitability of deposition.

Periods

Periods linked to Richard II

Lancastrian England1399–1461 CE Peasants’ Revolt1381 CE Reign of Richard II1377–1399 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Richard II (8 series)

An Owen Archer Mystery in Order

by Candace Robb 16 books 4.2(39,740)

The Owen Archer mysteries follow a Welsh soldier and former captain of archers who becomes an investigator, spy and officer in fourteenth-century York. Beginning in 1363, Owen serves Archbishop John Thoresby and later the city authorities, while his marriage to apothecary Lucie Wilton gives the investigations a close…

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Struggle for a Crown in Order

by Griff Hosker 10 books 4.5(19,374)

Struggle for a Crown follows soldiers and retainers through the crises of late medieval England and France. The series moves from Richard II and Henry IV to Henry V, Agincourt, the later Hundred Years’ War and the struggle to hold English power in France. It is a dynastic…

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Crispin Guest Medieval Noir in Order

by Jeri Westerson 15 books 4.2(13,395)

The Crispin Guest Medieval Noir mysteries follow a disgraced former knight who survives in late-fourteenth-century London as the Tracker, an investigator hired to recover lost objects, expose secrets and untangle crimes that official justice cannot or will not solve. Crispin’s fall for treason gives him unusual access to…

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Jeanette of Kent Duology in Order

by Elizabeth Chadwick 2 books 4.4(3,334)

The Jeanette of Kent Duology tells the story of Joan of Kent, presented as Jeanette: a royal cousin whose private choices repeatedly become matters of dynastic importance. The Royal Rebel follows her forbidden marriage to Thomas Holland and the long legal battle to have that marriage recognised. The…

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Archibald the Grim Series in Order

by J.R. Tomlin 5 books 4.2(3,930)

The Archibald the Grim novels follow Archibald Douglas, the illegitimate son of James ‘the Black’ Douglas, from an uncertain childhood during the Second War of Scottish Independence to his emergence as one of the most formidable magnates of fourteenth-century Scotland. Raised amid exile, invasion and disputed loyalties, Archibald…

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The Mowbray Chronicles in Order

by Mette Holm 7 books 4.2(2,089)

The Mowbray Chronicles follow a fictional branch of the English Mowbray family from the later Hundred Years’ War through the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. Argyle Mowbray’s murder inquiry begins the numbered sequence at Richard’s divided court, but the dynasty’s concealed origins are established…

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Kate Clifford in Order

by Candace Robb 3 books 4.1(1,850)

The Kate Clifford mysteries are set in York during the crisis that ended the reign of Richard II and brought Henry Bolingbroke to the throne. Young widow Kate Clifford, trained to survive on the violent northern marches, supports herself by managing a guesthouse and discreet chambers near York…

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The Life and Times of Corban Loosestrife in Order

by Cecelia Holland 6 books 3.9(518)

The six-volume Corban Loosestrife saga begins in tenth-century Ireland when a Viking raid destroys Corban’s family and carries away his twin sister, Mav. His pursuit takes him through Dublin, Jórvík and Denmark before the family attempts a new life across the Atlantic. The later volumes shift much of…

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Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Richard II (10 books)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Richard II (12 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.